Games of chance are known and widely played for recreational purposes. In order to enhance the recreational experience for a player, it is common for the rules of the game to enable the player to place a wager on an outcome of the particular game being played. The wager is paid out at predetermined odds if the outcome of the game is successful, and forfeited by the player of the outcome of the game is unsuccessful. The determination as to whether any wager is successful or unsuccessful is determined according to the rules of the game.
In this specification, the term “gaming apparatus” is taken to include any apparatus on which, or with which, the player may play a game of chance, and associated with which the player may place a wager on an outcome of the game.
The wager may be made with real currency, or with an equivalent of value, such as credits or tokens.
Generally, games of chance are repetitive in nature and consist of sequential cycles, each including the following steps: placing a wager, generating one or more random events, determining whether the wager is successful or unsuccessful as a function of the random events, collecting the wager if unsuccessful, and paying the wager according to predetermined odds if the wager is successful. Examples of such repetitive games are roulette, blackjack, video poker and slots.
The simplest example of the slots game is exemplified in a three-reel slot machine. Each reel of the slot machine is a physical reel and has, say, 30 indexed positions, some of which may display a corresponding indicium to a player of the slot machine. The player is required to place a wager by introducing coins, tokens or credit into the slot machine, which then frees the reels to be spun and to come to rest, randomly, at any of the indexed positions. The spin of each reel thus results in a random event, as described above, and the combination of the three random events constitutes an outcome of the game. The slot machine may be implemented in software, with the random events being generated by a software random number generator. One particular outcome of the slots game usually causes the player to win a prize consisting of a fixed jackpot. A slot machine with the above geometry, namely three reels and 30 positions per reel, provides the player with a 1 in 27 000 chance of winning the fixed jackpot, meaning that, on average, 27 000 outcomes of the game must be determined in order for the jackpot to be won by the player.
In order to take advantage of the random nature of the outcomes of the game, it is known to replace the fixed jackpot by a progressive jackpot in which a proportion of each wager placed by the player of the slot machine is used to increment the jackpot. The randomness makes it possible for the progressive jackpot to become large relative to the fixed jackpot described above, which enhances the attractiveness of the slot machine to would-be players thereof. It must, of course, be appreciated that the randomness also raises the possibility of the progressive jackpot being won when it is small relative to the fixed jackpot.
The slots game has a single favourable outcome, a number of intermediate outcomes, and a plurality of unsuccessful outcomes. When the favourable outcome of the slots game occurs, the player wins the jackpot. When an intermediate outcome occurs, the player's wager is paid at predetermined fixed odds. When an unfavourable outcome occurs, the player's wager is forfeited.
Thus the wager made by the player is a wager on the occurrence of either the favourable outcome, or any one of the intermediate outcomes, the odds at which the wager is paid being inversely proportional to the probability of that outcome occurring.
This method of wagering is unnecessarily restrictive to a player of the slots game. It is desirable to provide a slots game that offers a player wagering choices that are more flexible than those of prior art equivalent games.